Re: Star Wars

I don't remember my first time, or if I was blown away. I do remember my earliest memory though, I was super young. I can't remember actual memories, just feelings and my idea of what happened. I was with my aunts and we were watching Return of the Jedi with my grandpa.

I don't know if he had ever seen the movie before, but there's a scene where Darth Vader throws his lightsaber at Luke then in the next scene he ignites it. My grandpa pointed it out as a mistake in the movie, because he never picked it up. My aunts tried to explain to him that he picked it up with the force, which he had no idea what they were talking about. Like all crotchety old men, he asked what the Force was and continued to say how stupid it is. I don't remember the rest of the movie, most likely because I couldn't hear the ending while my aunts tried to explain the mystical magic that had somehow eluded my grandpa throughout the whole movie.

A similar thing happened with me and my dad when he saw Matrix for the first time. The part where Neo wakes up and is bald, then they jack him back into the Matrix to explain to him, what exactly, the Matrix is. My dad was so surprised that they would let such a huge mistake into the movie. "He has hair! How did they not notice this?!" in his broken, yet pompous, Cuban accent. We sat there arguing for the next 15 minutes because he wouldn't let me explain what the Matrix was and why he didn't have hair. What was the most frustrating thing was had we just sat there with our mouths shut for a few more seconds he would have seen the explanation that Morpheus gives Neo.

Re: Star Wars

Yeah I don't remember my very first experience either. I'm not even sure I liked the Star Wars movies until Attack of the Clones came out. Before that I was probably too young to like anything that wasn't animated. I do remember everyone at my elementary school was super hyped up for Revenge of the Sith. During recess we always acted out SW characters (we each had a specific one we picked out). I can remember it pretty well because we did this for at least a whole semester before RotS came out. I remember my favorite character was General Grievous even though I only knew him from one episode of the clone wars cartoon before RotS came out. I just liked him because he looked the coolest having four lightsabers and all. I guess this next part is a spoiler. I remember enjoying RotS as much as we all hoped, except a lot of my friends would give me shit since Grievous died pretty early and he was "my" character.

Re: Star Wars

I remember watching A New Hope when but I don't remember my feelings about it. Although I do remember getting really excited when Phantom Menace came out at the Cinema and practically dragged my Mum to see it. When you're seven years old lightsabers are the coolest thing on the planet. And then Darth Maul comes out with a double ended lightsaber and I probably let out a little squeal and wet myself. Ok maybe not that far but pretty damn close.

Re: Star Wars

^implying lightsabers aren't still the coolest thing on the planet

I honestly don't remember much either, just that I really wanted to see it when it came on TV. I'm not even sure how I first knew about Star Wars. My friend and I used to act out scenes from The Phantom Menace and use yardsticks for lightsabers (our moms were teachers).

Re: Star Wars

Don't feel bad Wally, Darth Maul, Grievous, they're all still bad ass. At some point everyone's story ends, and theirs' just happened to end in the movies. They had to die to show how manipulative Palpatine was and how little he cared for those who serve him.

Re: Star Wars

I was 50/50 on his story. None of it's canon now so I'm hoping Disney can do more than just his people fighting against bug people and then his escape pod blows up and oh look he named himself Grievous.

For me, a lot of the magic of Star Wars is not necessarily the story itself. George Lucas is not a good writer, nor a phenomenal director, he's a wonderful dreamer, and next to his big dreams is the intelligence to support that dream with innovative visionaries who can come up fantastic people to fill this universe with.

Most writers have a very specific look or idea of how something looks, but Lucas leaves that to much more creative people and that's why these characters, at least visually, just catch your eye. If he could have left his writing to more capable hands the way he let the visuals go the prequels would have been much more different.

I bring this up because you can see it in action with The Creation of General Grievous. He gives these talented people freedom to create anything and then he stamps it, and what does he pick? A spray bottle. How the artist comes up with this creature from a spray bottle top astounds me, so awesome.

Re: Star Wars

Rodimus Mike wrote:

Don't feel bad Wally, Darth Maul, Grievous, they're all still bad ass. At some point everyone's story ends, and theirs' just happened to end in the movies. They had to die to show how manipulative Palpatine was and how little he cared for those who serve him.

As of now this series is no longer canon, and there's a few contradictions between this and The Clone Wars, but I still love this series and keep it canon in my head until it's proven otherwise.

Why did they decide it wasn't canon anymore? This series was meant to tie into Revenge of the Sith. I've even read an expanded universe story that told a slightly altered version of how Grievous captured Palpatine that also made reference to other events in this series.

Re: Star Wars

When Disney bought Star Wars, they decided that anything that George Lucas did not personally involve himself in was not canon. Games, books, comics, TV Specials, spin-off movies, shows, they're all out the door. Everything else Lucas pretty much said 'have fun just pay me'. He even contradicted a lot of things with the prequels like Boba Fett's origin story, so nothing was ever truly canon anyway. That's all considered the Legends lines, because there can be truth in legends (Disney can take all the good ideas they want and make them canon if they feel like it). So as of now, the only things that are canon are the six movies, The Clone Wars show, Star Wars Rebels, and any books and comics that have come out in the last year.

Some things from the Expanded Universe are canon by proxy, like Darth Bane. He started as just a name in a video game, got some books about himself, became really popular, then was featured in Clone Wars. So now Darth Bane the Sith is canon, because Yoda met him in Clone Wars, but everything about his back story, anything talked about in books, is not, and subject to change. I think the Legends line will continue, so if people want to read stories about Jaina or Jacen Solo they can, people will still write about it, but things like Chewbacca having a moon fall on his head and dying are out, so we get to see him in the new movie.

Personally, I enjoyed the EU, but I'm happy this is happening. Too many cooks in the kitchen made for convoluted stories, and some of them outright sucked, so it'll be nice to wipe the whole things clean and really streamline it. It's like when Marvel started the Ultimate comics.

Re: Star Wars

Whilst I agree with Mike in that the EU is out the window, I like to think that KOTOR, KOTOR2 and SWTOR are canon purely because the story is 4,000 years before Phantom Menace and it'd be pretty hard for Disney to fuck that up. There are still things that Disney shouldn't (and probably won't) touch.

Re: Star Wars

I think a lot of things will eventually become canon again, but with tweaking. Tarkin's back story in the new book is very similar to his old expanded universe back story, like coming from a wealthy family. There's no mistress though, and a few other tweaks.

I think a lot of people who cry foul are panicking because the sky is falling. That is, it sounds scary but there's nothing really bad going on. Eventually a lot of what was good will come back, but in some other fashion, and stuff that was crap or contradicting, will be left out. For example, Kaiburr Crystals (stones that increased force power) were brought up in the book Splinter of a Mind's Eye, which had Leia and Luke making out (because at the time the 5th and 6th movies had not come out) and all that is not canon. In Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, Kyber Crystals are what Jedi use to focus the beam inside the lightsaber. Same name, different spelling and use, but none the less, the old expanded universe will continue to live on in the new canon.

I guarantee Reven will return in some way as an ancient Sith Lord, but maybe minus all the bullshit from the game like the Yoda clone on Dantooine or the ridiculous plot of knocking a Sith out so he loses his memory and then retraining him to be super cool. For sure Canderous Ordo is out because the version of Mandalorians in the game is completely contradictory to what was seen in the Clone Wars.

I'm looking forward to A LOT of the crappy stuff like the Sith as a species, Kaiburr crystals, Palpatine clones, and Luke clones (his name was fucking Luuke) getting left at the curb while some of the better things like Darth Plaguis, Bane, and Reven getting revamps and getting put back in to the official storyline.

Re: Star Wars

It means whether something is part of the "real" Star Wars universe. If I wrote a random fanfiction about SW it would not be considered canon because it would probably contradict the history of SW or maybe it would just add elements that don't really work.

Re: Star Wars

Wally's got it. Almost all pop culture series have some sort of canonical content. Fan Fiction and stuff, you read it and you know it's not part of the official world, you don't get mad when the main character dies or whatever. Wiki has the history of the Star Wars Canon